Asked when children under the age of 12 will be able to get vaccinated, President Biden said it would be "soon, I believe."
When pressed on how soon this would be, Biden went on to say “soon, in the sense that I do not tell any scientists what they should do. I do not interfere. So, they are doing the examinations now, the testing now, and making the decision now,” he said, adding that scientists will make a decision “when they are ready” and have “done all the science that needs to be done” to determine the appropriate vaccination for different age groups.
"Children 5, 6, 7, 8, they all have different makeups. They're developing. They're trying to figure out whether or not there's a vaccination that affects one child that is at such and such an age, and not another child. That's underway," the President said during the CNN town hall.
In May, the US Food and Drug Administration expanded the emergency use authorization for Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine to include people ages 12 to 15. Children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.
Biden also indicated that he expects the Covid-19 vaccines, which currently are approved under emergency use authorization, to get full approval Food and Drug Administration “quickly.”
The FDA granted priority review to Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine last week, with CNN reporting that an FDA official suggested a decision on full approval is likely to come within two months. Moderna has also begun submitting data for approval of its two-dose coronavirus vaccine, and Johnson & Johnson is expected to seek FDA approval.
“They’re not promising me any specific date, but my expectation, talking to the group of scientists we put together… plus others in the field, is that sometime, maybe in the beginning of the school year, at the end of August, beginning September, October, they’ll get a final approval,” he said.
Watch the moment: